


Owning Up

by thehoyden



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-06
Updated: 2010-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehoyden/pseuds/thehoyden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was true that Merlin was kind of a miserable excuse for a servant, but Arthur was beginning to suspect that something more than his usual incompetence was going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Owning Up

**Author's Note:**

> Oh dear god THIS SHOW IS INSANE. I mean, awesome, but seriously. Audiencing by [](http://rageprufrock.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://rageprufrock.livejournal.com/)**rageprufrock**.

It was true that Merlin was kind of a miserable excuse for a servant, but Arthur was beginning to suspect that something more than his usual incompetence was going on.

It wasn't that Merlin didn't do what he was told -- well, Merlin usually only managed to do three quarters of what he was told, but lately he seemed to take even more time doing it. And furthermore, he seemed to disappear at regular intervals, inevitably when Arthur needed him _right that minute_. "I shouldn't have to be tracking down my own servant," he muttered.

Morgana smiled her evil, evil, women-know-things-you-don't-know smile. "Perhaps someone caught his eye."

Arthur stopped in his tracks. "That's completely ridiculous," he snapped, and most definitely did not adopt any kind of hurried pace to the Court Physician's rooms.

Arthur knocked on Gaius' door, because he might be a prince, but that was no reason to act like a completely uncivilized person. As he'd expected, Merlin answered the door -- but only opened it a crack. "Yes?" he said. He looked mussed. Breathless.

Arthur gritted his teeth. "I'm not accustomed to having to track down my own manservant. Did you miss the part where you're supposed to serve at my convenience, not yours?"

Merlin stared at him for a minute, a slack-jawed, doe-eyed look of confusion on his face, when really there was only one acceptable response to Arthur's question. "Well," Merlin said, clearly hedging. "Right. Very sorry. What did you need me to do?"

Arthur couldn't for the life of him remember. "It doesn't matter what I want you to do, it only matters that you're not there when I want you to do it. Are you an infant completely incapable of following the most straight-forward orders?"

"Infant?" Merlin echoed, looking even more nervous. "Arthur, I --"

Arthur narrowed his eyes, looking for any tell-tale marks that might prove that Merlin had been dallying with some girl instead of waiting on Arthur's every command.

"Merlin," Arthur said, his patience evaporating. "Stop hiding behind that door."

"I'm not," Merlin protested, even though he clearly _was_. "Gaius is just -- well, he's working on -- I have to keep the door closed. I'll be right there, just a minute."

And then he _shut the door in Arthur's face_.

He could hear Merlin and Gaius having a hushed conversation, before Merlin opened the door and shut it very carefully.

"Please don't shout, Arthur," Merlin said, speaking quietly.

Arthur frowned, a little mollified by Merlin's apparent fear of his displeasure, which was an improvement on the whole servant-thing. "I'm not _that_ angry with you," he said generously.

Merlin looked momentarily puzzled, and then said, "So, what did you want me to do?"

***

But it didn't stop. Merlin was still frequently, annoyingly absent, and he looked distracted even when he was helping Arthur put on his armor.

Finally, he just couldn't stand it anymore and followed Merlin when he slipped away. Merlin navigated the twists and turns of the hallways down to a side door that wasn't far from the village marketplace. He couldn't follow Merlin far without being noticed by the villagers, but he did see Merlin talking with a young woman. She wasn't beautiful -- pretty, perhaps, not completely hideous, adequate for someone of Merlin's station. Merlin gave her a grateful smile before they parted ways.

Arthur scowled. Not only was Merlin a terrible servant, he was a terrible lover, to boot. Who looked at a girl _gratefully_? Merlin didn't even get any sort of goodbye kiss. Perhaps he was just stupidly love-struck and hadn't done anything about it yet.

Yes, Arthur decided, that was it. That kind of idiocy had Merlin written all over it.

***

Still, it wasn't as though Arthur was completely hardhearted. So Merlin was weirdly infatuated with a girl who wasn't altogether hideous. The right thing to do was to get Merlin drunk so as to either have the courage to do something about it, or forget about it altogether.

"Arthur, I can't," Merlin protested as Arthur pressed the goblet into his hands.

"Sure you can," Arthur said, trying to sound encouraging when really he wanted to sound petulant because Merlin still hadn't figured out that he was supposed to obey Arthur's every whim.

"I need to get back -- Gaius needs me to --"

"Gaius will wait," Arthur said. "Drink that."

Merlin looked frustrated, his brow furrowed, but he obediently drank the unwatered wine down -- faster than he should have, but then, Merlin had no head for wine. Which was good, because it played into Arthur's clever plan.

Arthur sipped his wine slowly, and then, after an interval had passed, suggested that Merlin have another cup.

Merlin looked flushed, and obediently poured himself more from the decanter. It was a shame that having an eternally-drunken servant would be inconvenient, because Merlin was so much more pliable this way.

"Now," Arthur said. "Listen carefully. In this situation, the thing to do is to be a man, Merlin, and own up."

"Own up?" Merlin repeated, halfway through his second cup. Arthur really ought to cut him off after this -- any more, and Merlin would be confessing his love to the privy and not the girl.

"That's right," Arthur said. He was speaking on second-hand knowledge, of course, because he'd personally never been laid low by lovesickness. Still, it seemed like the right sort of thing to do. "Hiding it is pointless and cowardly."

Merlin's eyes widened. "I'm trying to do the right thing," he said, and looked flustered and rumpled from having run his hands through his hair more than once. "I just -- it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought."

Arthur nodded encouragingly.

"I have to go," Merlin said suddenly, standing up from his chair and swaying dangerously before righting himself.

Arthur waved him away magnanimously. This had clearly been another excellent, well-executed plan -- with any luck, Merlin's infatuation would be requited, and then Merlin could get back to the very serious business of being Arthur's obedient manservant.

***

But he didn't, and this time, Arthur really lost his temper. He stomped down to Gaius' rooms and didn't bother to knock, just swung the door open.

Merlin's back was to him, and he turned his head to look at Arthur, panic plain on his face. "Arthur! I -- I was going to tell you, I really was, I was going to, you know, own up and do the right thing but Arthur, I don't see how it's fair to him."

Arthur stared at him. Merlin still wasn't totally facing him, and had something in his arms. "How is it not fair to who?" he demanded.

"I know I lied to her, but I just -- I didn't want him to starve," Merlin said, sounding distressed.

"What are you talking about?" Arthur asked, utterly confused.

The thing in Merlin's arms made a _noise_, and when Merlin turned around and stepped into the light, Arthur realized he'd been completely, thoroughly mistaken.

Merlin was cradling an infant in his arms.

Arthur blinked. "Where did you get a _baby_?" he asked.

Merlin just looked at him, with that same sort of smacked-with-a-fish expression on his face.

Arthur was horrified to have been even more wrong than he'd suspected. "You mean you've already --"

"No!" Merlin interrupted. "I -- someone left him on the doorstep."

"Oh," Arthur said, relaxing a little. Then he frowned again. "Do you mean to tell me that all this time, instead of doing your duty, you've been looking after a brat?"

Merlin's lips pursed in that way they did when he really, really wanted to say something.

"Let me see him properly," Arthur said, and Merlin obediently stepped forward.

Arthur didn't have any experience with babies, but this one seemed healthy enough. Kind of pink and pudgy. "He's awfully small," Arthur said finally.

Merlin's eyebrow rose. "The wet nurse says he'll get bigger soon enough."

"The wet nurse?" Arthur thought about it for a moment, and then realized he really had been more wrong than he could have imagined. "The girl from the marketplace."

"I'm not sure I even want to know how you found out about her," Merlin said, and then looked a little guilty. "I told her he was my nephew, and that my sister had passed away."

Arthur shook his head. "You're really amazingly stupid, you know."

Merlin flushed again, but this time from temper and not from wine. "I needed her help! I don't know if you know this, but getting a woman to agree to nurse a child who _isn't hers_ isn't like buying flowers in the marketplace!"

The baby made a fussy, discontented noise then, wrinkling his noise in his sleep, and Merlin immediately shut up.

"They could have left him at the church," Arthur said quietly. "Why did they bring him here?"

Merlin brushed one delicate finger over the baby's head, where there were only a few wisps of hair. "He was sick -- Gaius thinks whoever brought him here hoped that Gaius could cure him."

"Did he?" Arthur asked in the same hushed voice. "He looks all right."

"Mmm-hmm," Merlin says. "I had to give him a healing draught for a week. He spat up half of it all over me."

Arthur thought that sounded pretty revolting, but Merlin had a soft, adoring expression on his face, so maybe he was missing something. "What's his name?" Arthur asked.

Merlin looked shifty.

"You don't know," Arthur said, knowing he'd interpreted the look correctly when Merlin winced. "What have you been calling him?"

Merlin winced more.

Arthur looked heavenward. "Don't tell me you've just been calling him 'Baby.'"

Arthur admittedly didn't know much of anything about children, but he did know that names were very important, and by the time Merlin got around to it, the child would probably be walking.

"Right, then, I'll see to that," he said, feeling decisive. "And no, you can't help, you made up that idiot Lancelot's name."

"That really was his name," Merlin protested.

"Bring the baby -- we need to consult an expert," Arthur said.

***

Morgana, despite being really a pain and incredibly annoying, had always been a bit more diligent in her studies than Arthur. Oh, he was plenty learned, but Morgana was the one who would sit up nights over record-books and old histories.

"We need a name," Arthur told her. "Something appropriate with the sun and moon and whatnot."

"Whatnot?" Morgana asked dangerously, her fingers pausing over her starcharts as she glared at him.

But any bad temper melted away instantly when Arthur gathered the cloak back over Merlin's shoulders, revealing the baby in his arms.

"Oh!" she said. "Is it --?"

"Not mine," Merlin hastened to explain. "Not his, either," he was apparently impelled to add, even though Arthur scowled at him. "Someone left him on my doorstep."

"_Oh_," Morgana said, her expression frighteningly sweet. "Well then, when was he born?"

Arthur and Merlin looked at each other. "Well," Merlin temporized, "He's still pretty small, isn't he?"

Morgana gave them both a look that suggested they were phenomenally stupid, and did things with her charts and consulted a few books, before waving Merlin over.

He bent over slightly, and followed her fingertips across the page. "Alisander," he read, sounding thoughtful.

Arthur wrinkled his nose at being left out. "I thought we agreed that you weren't naming him."

"_I'm_ naming him," Morgana said tartly. "Or at least as well as I can, under the circumstances."

"Yes, thank you," Arthur said hurriedly, because staying on Morgana's good side was a matter of timing and also attempting to mind his manners. "We'll be going now."

Merlin looked like he wanted to protest, but Arthur just busied himself with spreading out Merlin's cloak again, making sure both he and the baby -- Alisander -- were covered.

"Well, at least that was better than last time," Arthur said on their way back to Gaius' quarters.

"Last time?"

"You don't even want to know what she named my dog," Arthur said grimly.

***

Arthur would be the first to admit that a servant who was trying to juggle the schedules of a court physician, a wet nurse, and an infant, in addition to Arthur's, wasn't a very effective servant.

Still, for all the inconvenience, Arthur couldn't say he didn't derive some strange enjoyment from sitting in Gaius' workroom, watching Merlin do whatever it was that Merlin did for Gaius while simultaneously keeping an eye on the baby. Thus far, he had learned several strange new things -- Alisander absolutely loved Merlin, tolerated Gaius, liked the wet nurse for as long as he was hungry, and seemed to be under the impression that Arthur was pure evil if Merlin wasn't right next to him.

"I don't know what you're so unhappy about," Arthur told Alisander, in a tone of voice that more resembled how he'd spoken to his puppy than to a human being. It was little mortifying, but he couldn't seem to stop. "I'm your prince, you know. You're supposed to like me."

Merlin was leaning against Arthur's side, safely in Alisander's view and thus preventing any outbreak of howling. "I didn't know that was a rule," he said, smiling a bit at Alisander in Arthur's arms.

"_You_ like me," Arthur said confidently, and felt Merlin go stiff against him.

Some of the certainty drained out of Arthur, and he turned his head to look at Merlin. "You do, don't you?" he asked quietly, willing to be wrong about a great many things except for this.

Merlin looked at him steadily, his face so close to Arthur's, but it was marked by none of the confusion that had crossed it more times than Arthur could remember in the recent weeks. "I'll own up to that," Merlin said softly.

Arthur would have kissed Merlin then if his arms hadn't been full of baby, but Merlin just rested his head on Arthur's shoulder, and that turned out to be pretty nice, too.

***

He should have seen it coming -- after all, it was ludicrous to think that just because Merlin and Gaius had nursed the baby back to health, they were going to raise him as well. Still, Arthur was a little surprised at how disappointed he was when he came down to Gaius' quarters to find the baby gone, and Merlin alone.

"It took us a while to find a family to take him in," Merlin said, and if anything, he looked even worse than Arthur felt. "Gaius told me it wasn't practical for us to keep him, and I knew that, but I guess I just got used to him."

"He was nice," Arthur allowed. "You know, for a baby."

"Yeah," Merlin said, and heaved a sigh.

It took a moment for Arthur to figure out what was odd. And then it came to him -- no Alisander meant no baby crying to fed or cleaned or entertained.

Most importantly, it meant _no interruptions_.

On the balance, Arthur had been more right than wrong -- wrong, yes, about the girl, but right about Merlin being lovesick, and right about Merlin not having done anything about it. The trouble was, of course, now that they both mutually wanted to correct the situation, they were thwarted at every turn by Morgana (twice), Gaius (four times), and a tiny human being who couldn't even talk yet (far too many times to count).

He wrapped one sympathetic arm around Merlin's slumped shoulders, letting his hand rest at the base of Merlin's neck, his thumb stroking gently over the nape. "It's not like we can't go see him," Arthur reminded him.

Merlin looked at him. "Right now?" he asked, sounding a little surprised.

"Not right now. We're busy right now," Arthur said, and pulled Merlin close against him.

"Arthur, I -- I mean, I've never really --" Merlin stammered when Arthur leaned in.

"Hush," Arthur murmured, and finally, finally kissed him. And while Merlin was a terrible sort of servant, he did follow orders when he knew what was good for him -- and there was no doubt in Arthur's mind that this was going to be very good indeed.


End file.
